Bismarck, North Dakota News

" The ban on growing industrial hemp was never about the drug found in marijuana. I believe the giants in the pulp industry with the help of powerful political allies and the FDA succeeded in putting a hex on it and that way got congress to ban it. The spell has never been broken and it is about time to smash it. Be thankful that North Dakota is trying although our congressmen don't seem to want to touch it. I think it ought to be a bigger story than National Geographic's "Emptied Prairie" or "Buffalo Commons". If the benefits of hemp is as good as claimed, then the story should get out instead of being surpressed. The drug issue is just a scare tactic. "

" Anyone who has ever smoked pot, knows that this is not the problem. If our government and it war on drugs keeps targeting pot, they are missing the big picture. What is wrong with happy, well fed pot-heads? Pot is not imported from terrorist countries and does not rip aprt families.
METH!!! is the problem it tears aprt families leaves kids with out parents and parents without kids. Everyone who reads this know that METH is our problem not people smoking some pot. At this very second I know 2 people sitting in prison for METH that left wives and kids, I also know a brother-in-law who went to 3 months of rehab and struggles everyday. WHO CARES ABOUT HEMP AND KIDS OR ADULTS SMOKING SOME POT...LOOK AT THE BIGGER PICTURE AND WHAT OUR PROBLEMS REALLY ARE! "

" Um, where exactly did you say this Canary grass grows . . .? "

" To Jeff: The problem is that we haven't been able to use poppies yet to compete with the synthetics produced by oil by-products. Once we can make a rope with poppies that is stronger than the rope made with nylon, then you can be sure that the government will put the kabosh on it. After all, we wouldn't want a healthier, more efficient product cutting into oil profits, now would we? "

" I have a nice patch of poppies in my front yard, I'm surprised the DEA hasn't come pounding on my door yet... I think a demonization campaign of the poppy plant is long overdue! Opiads cause far more damage and destruction to society than the "devil's weed." If only we had the masses paralized in fear over the killer poppy plant, then we could rally together and save our youth from life-sapping heroine addictions. Come to think of it... isn't coca leaf still used in Coca-cola, forget that it's been processed and de-cocainized, it's still from the same plant! And 'Coca-cola' it's almost like theyre trying to indoctrinate our kids in sniffing coke, by starting them with soda first. My god, did you realize that there are thousands of legal plants, such as the canary grass that you find growing in your backyard that carry within them the schedule 1 hallucinogen DMT. Dont even get me started on those mushrooms that exist LEGALLY in the woods near my house. That's our answer to drug abuse: we need to whip up fear and general histeria and erradicate any plant that has anything, even a whif of association, to drugs, because our problem is these vile plants God so mischieviously laced our planet with! "

" Hey Pilot... I like the way your think'n. Look'n at the big picture. "

" But, but... Don't you know? If they allow hemp to be farmed below the Canadian border, then EVERY country all the way to Argentina will want to grow the stuff. If that happens, then the pollen from the hemp will infect the marijuana crops and seriously damage the quality, purity and intoxicating strength of marijuana. The net result of this action would mean that the CIA won't be able to use the revenues they garner from their covert marijuana operations, and they won't be able to properly fund their pseudo-cointelpro operations throughout Central & South America with drug money like Col Ollie North did for nearly a decade. Also, it may diminish the US black market, because it would make it easier for US citizens to grow their own in secret. The CIA and Pentagon would never stand for that, because they can never have enough money - running the world covertly is expensive! "